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Did you ever see history portrayed as an old man with a wise brow and pulseless heart, waging all things in the balance of reason?
Is not rather the genius of history like an eternal, imploring maiden, full of fire, with a burning heart and flaming soul, humanly warm and humanly beautiful?
--Zachris Topelius

Training a telescope on one’s own belly button will only reveal lint. You like that? You go right on staring at it. I prefer looking at galaxies.
-- Sarah Hoyt

As an Englishman, my understanding of Thanksgiving is that you have a dinner to remember the intolerant religious puritans who came to America because they were so unpopular at home, and who would have starved had it not been for the charity of the indigenous peoples giving them turkey to eat, and who, by way of thanks, they killed and stole their land.

Is that right?

---------------------------------I will never again mention that I was the poster of the One Millionth Lounge Post, nor that it was complete drivel. Dalek Dave

'Brazil' is a phonetic writing down of what your country name sounds like in English.

Germany is an interesting one. There's three entirely different names which aren't linguistically related: Germany, which I think comes from the Roman name for the province (Germania); Deutschland, which comes from what the people call themselves (confusingly, this is the same as the English 'Dutch' which applies to NL); and Allemagne/Alemanha/etc which I'm not sure where it comes from.

Actually, the term Lingua Franca is from the Roman period after the Goths sacked Rome.
It meant Language of the Franks.

The Franks were German.

So the Germania you speak of was much larger than modern Germany, it composed of all areas to the East of the Rhine plus Poland, Switzerland, parts of France, Italy and what was to become Belgium.
(Remembering that Belgium was invented by the British and named after the British tribe, the Belgii).

---------------------------------I will never again mention that I was the poster of the One Millionth Lounge Post, nor that it was complete drivel. Dalek Dave

From[^] the Alamanni[^]; a Germanic tribe along the upper Rhine (the area north of the Alps).

Did you ever see history portrayed as an old man with a wise brow and pulseless heart, waging all things in the balance of reason?
Is not rather the genius of history like an eternal, imploring maiden, full of fire, with a burning heart and flaming soul, humanly warm and humanly beautiful?
--Zachris Topelius

Training a telescope on one’s own belly button will only reveal lint. You like that? You go right on staring at it. I prefer looking at galaxies.
-- Sarah Hoyt

Been hangin' waiting for you to say you're OK. Thank whatever deity/ies.
Saw some news pix and before/after aerial shots. Not pretty.
All the best to you and yours with the recovery.
Just remember, it's going to take a long time, and some things will NEVER be the way they were.

“Most of the important things in the world have been accomplished by people who have kept on trying when there seemed to be no hope at all.”

I think computer viruses should count as life. I think it says something about human nature that the only form of life we have created so far is purely destructive. We've created life in our own image.
Stephen Hawking

I read in the paper, that the unions in New Jersey were not allowing non-unionized workers from other states, to help you guys out. The story also said that New Jersey would have had their power back a lot sooner if this did not happen.